ABSTRACT
Frederick Douglass, the head of the negro race in America – a man whose history has been one long romance – lives just outside the city of Washington, at a place he calls Cedar Hill. The former confidant of William Lloyd Garrison, the peer of Wendell Phillips in the oratory which aroused the conscience of the North against slavery, he more than any save Lincoln and Grant deserves the praise of emancipation. Douglass is nearly seventy-five years old, but he rises at five every morning, walks over his grounds, and answers the bulk of his correspondence before breakfast. He says his life has been “singularly happy.” He has been married to his present wife for forty-four years and they see children and grandchildren about them. The site of their villa is one which the original owner stipulated in the deed of transfer should never be owned by a descendant of the African race. Douglass has a fine library. The room is decorated with clever paintings. Splendid busts of Feurbach occupy prominent positions. He is a bit of a violinist, and laughingly admits that when he was much younger he tried his prentice hand at verse. He says, “I consider Peter Jackson one of the best missionaries abroad”.166
